Kitchen makeover on a budget: what each change costs

Every way to update a dated kitchen without replacing it, with real UK prices, ranked by what it costs against how much it changes the room.

Updated 30 October 2026 · The Kitchen Resprayer

The short answer

Start with the cheap, visible changes: handles from about £2.25 each, kitchen tile paint at about £20 a tin, wall paint, under-cabinet lights and new socket plates. Each costs tens of pounds at the prices UK retailers list.

The doors are the biggest change and the biggest cost. Paint, respray, wrap or replace them once the rest is decided.

Every change, cheapest first

Prices are what UK retailers listed on 30 October 2026. The impact column is our judgement of how much each change alters the look of a typical kitchen, because that's the trade-off that matters on a budget.

Change	Typical listed price	Impact	DIY?
Soft-close hinges, runners, plinth legs	£4.27 a pair of hinges; runners £11.99 a pair; legs £3.79 for 4	Low to see, high to use	Yes
New handles	£2.25 to £3 each	Medium	Yes
Socket and switch plates	£5.95 to £9.49 each	Low to medium	Like for like, see below
Under-cabinet lights	£22 a strip plus £10 driver (IKEA); £44 for a 5 m plug-in kit (B&Q)	Medium to high	Plug-in, yes
Tile paint on the splashback	About £20 to £22 a tin, about 14 m²	Medium	Yes
Wall paint	£32 for 2.5 l of Dulux Easycare Kitchen	Medium	Yes
Open shelf	£15 shelf plus £4 a bracket (IKEA)	Low to medium	Yes
New tap	£27.98 to £139.99, most £40 to £90	Low to medium	Usually
New plinth	£37 for 2.6 m (Wickes)	Low to medium	Yes
Splashback panel or new tiles	Steel panel £54.99; glass £79.98+; tiles £15/m² plus tiling	Medium to high	Panels, often
Floor	LVT £25/m²; floor tile paint £45.89 for about 14 m²	High	Yes, with care
Worktop	Wrap film £29.97 for 5 m; laminate £70 to £110 a length	High	Wrap, yes; laminate, handy DIY
Doors	From about £33 to £80 a door to replace; or paint, respray or wrap	Highest	Paint or replace, yes

Retailers' listed prices on 30 October 2026 (Toolstation, Wickes, B&Q, IKEA, Dunelm). Some were sale prices; the LED kit was out of stock at that price.

Handles: measure the holes first

New handles are the cheapest change you'll notice every day, and the easiest to get wrong. Handles fix through two holes a set distance apart, and that distance varies: Wickes' T-bar handles are 64 mm between holes, B&Q's GoodHome Annatto bar is 128 mm, and 96, 128 and 160 mm are all common. Measure your old handles' holes, centre to centre, and buy the same, or you'll be filling and redrilling every door. Kitchen cupboard handles covers sizing, placement and materials.

If you're changing the door colour too, do that first and pick the handles against the new colour. Kitchen cabinet colours that won't date covers how light and worktops change a colour.

Splashback: match it to the heat

The splashback is where cheap finishes fail fastest, because the bit behind the hob gets hot. Each option has a limit its maker publishes:

Splashback	Listed price	Heat limit
Kitchen tile paint (Rust-Oleum)	About £20 to £22 for 750 ml	Up to 60C; not for countertops
Peel-and-stick tiles (Dunelm)	£16 for 4 sheets	Not for exposed flame or high heat
Acrylic panel (Splashwall)	Trade2Base: £40 to £120 supply, £60 to £150 fitting	90C; not directly behind a gas hob (Trade2Base)
Stainless steel panel (Hafele, Toolstation)	£54.99 for 600 x 750 mm	-
Toughened glass (B&Q cooker splashback)	Glass panels from £79.98 (Toolstation)	250C
New ceramic tiles (Wickes Metro)	£15 per m², plus £40 to £90 per m² to fit (Trade2Base)	-

Makers' and retailers' own figures, 30 October 2026. Trade2Base says a typical splashback is 1.5 to 3 m² and tilers often charge a minimum half day.

A sensible budget split is tile paint or panels along the worktop and toughened glass or steel behind the hob. With tile paint, Rust-Oleum asks for sugar soap prep, two coats, and silicone applied after painting round the sink. Painting kitchen tiles covers the paints, grout and cure time in full.

Worktops and floors

Wrap the worktop

Self-adhesive film like d-c-fix costs £29.97 for 5 m at B&Q. It's rated to 70C, not for hot pans, and needs sealant round the sink and hob. The same film is sold for appliance fronts. Kitchen wrapping covers what professional film costs and where it lifts.

Paint it

A worktop paint and clear protective coat can change a laminate top, but it needs 20 days to reach full strength. See painting kitchen worktops.

Replace it with laminate

A Wickes slate-effect laminate worktop is £110 for 3 m with edging tape; IKEA's EKBACKEN is £70 for 186 cm. IKEA's rules for it: no hot pans straight on it, no kettle or toaster over a joint, and protect the underside over a dishwasher or oven.

Lay LVT over the old floor

Wickes' Novocore click LVT is £25 per m², waterproof, and goes over most subfloors. Which? notes LVT is markedly cheaper than ceramic, and that laminate flooring doesn't like moisture.

Paint the floor tiles

Rust-Oleum floor tile paint is £45.89 for 2.5 l at B&Q, about 14 m², two-part, two coats.

Lights, sockets and the rules

Under-cabinet lights change a kitchen more than their price suggests, because they light the worktop and the splashback you've just done. IKEA's MITTLED strip is £22 for 60 cm plus a £10 driver, and B&Q listed a 5 m plug-in kit with dimmer at £44. Plug-in kits need no wiring.

Swapping tired white sockets and switches for metal plates is the other cheap win: Toolstation lists BG metal double sockets at £7.49, screwless flat-plate sockets at £9.49 and a brushed steel 2-gang switch at £5.95. On whether you can do it yourself:

England

Approved Document P makes only three kinds of work notifiable: a new circuit, a new consumer unit, or work on circuits in a special location, which means round baths, showers, pools and saunas. Kitchens aren't on that list, and replacements anywhere aren't notifiable. The work still has to be safe and meet Part P.

Wales

Replacing sockets, switches and ceiling roses isn't notifiable. But adding new sockets or lighting points in a kitchen is, and so is extending a kitchen circuit.

Taps, hinges and the things you touch

A new tap is £27.98 to £139.99 at Toolstation, most £40 to £90. Check its minimum water pressure before you buy: Wickes' sink-and-tap pack (£109) needs at least 0.5 bar, while low-pressure taps work from about 0.2 bar, which matters on an older gravity-fed system.

The cheapest fixes are the ones you feel rather than see. Soft-close hinges are £4.27 a pair (Hafele) to £14.59 to £19.99 a pair (Blum) at Toolstation, a hinge repair kit is £2.99, soft-close drawer runners are £11.99 a pair, and a set of four unit legs is £3.79. A kitchen where every door closes quietly and no drawer sticks feels newer than its colour suggests. For the plinths those legs carry, see how plinths fit and what they cost.

The doors: the biggest change

Which? advises keeping the cabinet carcasses and replacing only the doors, and says carcasses usually come in standard 500 or 600 mm widths. You have four ways to change them:

Paint them yourself

The cheapest, and the most work. How to paint kitchen cupboards properly covers the primer for each door type.

Have them resprayed

Same doors, new colour, a factory-like finish. What a kitchen respray costs has the prices UK firms publish.

Wrap them

A film over the existing doors, best away from heat. See kitchen wrapping.

Replace them

New doors on the old units, from £48 for a B&Q door and drawer front. See replacement kitchen doors for sizes and hinges.

Keep the appliances if they work: Which? says that alone can save almost £1,000. And if you'd rather the doors were done for you, send two photos for a free respray quote and put it next to the rest of your budget.

Where this comes from

All read 30 October 2026. Firms change their prices and terms; check the current position with them.

Common questions

Handles, wall paint, tile paint and the small hardware fixes. New handles start at £2.25 to £3 each at Wickes and B&Q, a 750 ml tin of kitchen tile paint is about £20 and covers roughly 14 m², and soft-close hinges are £4.27 a pair at Toolstation. Then work up to the floor, splashback, worktop and, biggest of all, the doors.

Change the colour of the doors, then the handles. You can paint them yourself, have them resprayed, wrap them, or replace just the doors: a B&Q door and drawer front is £48. New hinges and a new plinth (£37 for 2.6 m at Wickes) finish the job.

How to paint kitchen cupboards properly

If the carcasses and the layout are sound, usually. Which? advises keeping the carcasses and replacing only the doors, and says keeping working appliances can save almost £1,000. If units are swollen or the layout is wrong, a refresh won't fix it.

Respray, new doors or a new kitchen

In England, replacing a socket or switch like for like isn't notifiable under Part P, though the work must still be safe and to standard; a new circuit is notifiable. In Wales, replacing them isn't notifiable either, but adding sockets or extending circuits in a kitchen is.

Yes, with a tile paint. Rust-Oleum's kitchen tile paint needs sugar soap prep and two coats, and withstands direct temperatures only up to 60C, so it isn't for countertops or right behind a hob. Around the sink, paint first and silicone after.

Toughened glass is the safe choice: B&Q's cooker splashback is rated to 250C. Acrylic is rated to 90C, and Trade2Base says standard acrylic isn't heat-resistant enough directly behind a gas hob. Peel-and-stick tiles aren't for areas with exposed flame or high heat.

Rather have it sprayed for you?

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